Ciao - for people with opinions

Latest reviews Latest questions
Write a review Latest videos
Special offers
Home > Books > Fiction > Classics > U Classics > Ulysses - James Joyce

User Reviews

for Ulysses - James Joyce

Rating Summary based on 11 reviews

  • 5 Stars
    		8
  • 4 Stars
    		2
  • 3 Stars
    		0
  • 2 Stars
    		0
  • 1 Star
    		1

Detailed rating

  • Characters
  • How does it compare to other works by the same author?
  • How does it compare to similar books?
  • Readability
  • Story
  		• 4.0
  		• 3.9
  		• 3.6
  		• 3.5
  		• 3.9
Previous page Next page Page 1 of 2 | 1 to 10 out of 11 Review(s)
  • 55 of 55 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of sottovoce82

    sottovoce82

    5 Stars "Yes I said yes I will Yes." Review with images 12/05/2008
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages The best reading experience ever

    Disadvantages Disadvantages It ends… I will read it again and again and again…

    Ulysses by James Joyce For me, James Joyce's Ulysses is not just a novel; it is a complete project. When I first read the book a couple of years ago, I was very apprehensive; I prepared some reference books and articles from the Internet, took a deep breath, and yet was unsure as to whether I would be able to appreciate such a difficult book properly. The novel has the same structure of The Odyssey, and I honestly don't remember which one of the two I read first, but I don't believe that reading Homer's epic is a prerequisite for reading Joyce's twentieth century epic. As I mentioned earlier ... more
  • 18 of 18 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of DavidJay

    DavidJay

    5 Stars James Joyce - Ulysses - Not The Audio Book! 22/10/2008
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Among the greatest novels ever written.

    Disadvantages Disadvantages You'd be best to take a few maps,

    Ulysses is both a start and an end. It is the start of something spectacular, exciting, innovative and revolutionary in the medium of the novel, and yet it is also the end of the novel, for post-Ulysses, there is very little left to be said by way of a series of words arranged in chapters and bound under a common name. Of all the modern classics, it is perhaps the most daunting. More so even than Proust's In Search Of Lost Time which seems as broad and as deep as the very notion of "time" itself. More so than any of the fragmented, challenging, anti-narratives that followed. Ulysses MEANS ... more
  • 54 of 54 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Amy69

    Amy69

    5 Stars The Return of the Lemon Platt 15/04/2012
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Unique, creative, thought-provoking, Irish, Joyce

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Cannot be read just one!

    "Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there was a moocow coming down along the road" was all it took to make me hooked on James Joyce. I studied A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man during my first semester as an English student and absolutely loved it. However, I cannot deny the fact that it took me quite a while to connect with Joyce's writing style. If you know anything about the Irish author (1882-1941), then you'll be familiar with the fact that he liked to experiment a lot with his writing of prose. Portrait is only the foundations however; he takes his alter ego Stephen ... more
  • 10 of 10 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of azrael

    azrael

    4 Stars Do you really need one... 04/10/2000
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages It's Joyce.

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Hard to read, etc.

    Yes it's the modernist text. Yes it's difficult to understand. Yes it's the forerunner and influence Eliot said he never had. Yes it's unoriginal - it uses the framework of the Odyssey. Yes its set over a single day. Yes each chapter uses a different technique. Yes it is humourous, yes it is linguistically alive, blazing, and pleasingly filthy in places, no doubt you already know which ones. Yes it is long - nearly 1000 pages. Yes the last chapter though thirty odd pages long has only eight sentences without punctuation; this is a woman's thoughts here. Yes it ends with the most affirming word ... more
  • 5 of 5 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of alcidebava

    alcidebava

    5 Stars ulysses 16/08/2000
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages it is a book of the ages

    Disadvantages Disadvantages it costs money to buy!

    Joyce was born in Ireland in 1882 and died in 1941. He was never rich, had much trouble with his eyes, his daughter was schizophrenic, and he died young. The only demand that I make of my reader is that they should devote their whole lives to rading my books, he said. They are possibly the richest books since the great economy of Shakespeare, joyce's great influence. Written in 13 different styles from 13 different points-of-view, with each style masterful, this is some book. Famously structured on Homer's ODYSSEY, it is merely structured on The Odyssey and perhaps has more to do with Hamlet ... more
  • 15 of 15 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of lizzie_haycocks

    lizzie_haycocks

    5 Stars Ulysses is the ultimate monument of fiction... 24/06/2004
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Its amazing and its Joyce...

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Its 'difficult'...

    It would be difficult to view Ulysses as a 'book'. At around 1000 pages long it is more of a literary and artistic monument than anything else. The work is stunning and encyclopaedic, looking at both the treasure and detritus of human lfe. Published in 1922, Joyce's 'novel' has a seemingly slim plot. It follows its protagonists through a day in Dublin as their lives interweave and interact. The frame for the novel comes form Homer's Odyssey and each of the 13 parts has its Homeric parallel. However, it is not necessary to understand all of these parallels to appreciate the work. Joyce said he ... more
  • 14 of 15 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of fairenoughclough

    fairenoughclough

    1 Star many years after 30/11/2004
    User doesn't recommend the product

    Advantages Advantages It is a classic

    Disadvantages Disadvantages it is difficult

    It seems almost like sacrilege to criticise an almost universally acclaimed book, such as this. Stream of consciousness is a term used to describe this style of writing. When I began to read this book I was immediately impressed by the effortless juxtaposition of the words used to descibe places and events; it was a joy to read the terms side by side. Unfortunately the effortlessness begins to pale into disinterest as the lack of story emerges, I'm reminded of a "Monty Python" sketch where " A minute passes". Not having studied this at "A" level I am not familiar with the official version of ... more
  • 8 of 12 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Fasteleven

    Fasteleven

    5 Stars James Joyce the Greath 03/04/2002
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Omero

    Disadvantages Disadvantages -

    A master work of modernist literature, Ulysses used the structure of the Homeric Odyssey as a contrast to the lives of the Dublin working class. The entire 732-page work takes place during Dublin's "dailiest day possible," Thursday, 16 June 1904. The bleak lives of the Dublin working class formed a stark contrast to the heroic Odyssey, and Joyce's frank realism was too avant-garde for the cultural police of the day. As Joyce began writing Ulysses in Trieste, he was approached by expatriate American writer Ezra Pound, who worked as foreign editor of an American magazine, The Little Review ... more
  • 1 of 5 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of asheem_singh

    asheem_singh

    5 Stars Th greatest book ever written? 25/06/2000
    User recommends the product
    Ulysses is a book that mere words cannot describe. Joyce’s modernist classic, for me represents the pinnacle of his achievements as a writer. It is not the dry social critique of Dubliners, nor is it the somewhat self-indulgent and impenetrable treatise that is Finnegan’s Wake. Rather, Ulysses occupies a ground between the two; the perfect balance between theme and method. The symbolic and perfectly rendered journey of Leopold Bloom reveals a consciousness, not just belonging to the Irish man, but relevant to a modern humanity. In doing so, Joyce depicts the epiphanies to be yielded from ... more
  • 2 of 9 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of s_c_o_t_t2001

    s_c_o_t_t2001

    4 Stars Ulysses 26/07/2007
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Astonishing piece of modern art

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Confusing, long

    This modernist literature is a master reflection on twentieth century ideology and reform. Joyce had said that he would keep professors busy for 300 years, a claim no other author has dared to make. I enjoyed reading this book as it has many underlying stories, meanings and coincidences. I studied this at degree level and created many a debate of ethics, morals and structure. It is a day in the life of a Dublin man, Leopold Bloom with 16 untitled chapters reflecting the Odessey using Greek terminology and influences. Joyce starts the story twice, therefore leading to confliction and confusion ... more
Previous page Next page Page 1 of 2 | 1 to 10 out of 11 Review(s)

Compare prices

for Ulysses - James Joyce
Compare all 22 prices